1. Forum email Richard Nisley to let me know you want to provide a scrap submission for testing. I will then provide you my personal contact information and log your submission data Those of you that are closer to Australia please contact Roger for all testing.

2. Please email me to my personal email address acquired in step 1 with a brief description of the material you want tested, the actual aerial weight if you have measured it, and any note you want added to the test report.

3. Include ideally two 1’ square virgin scraps. If you can’t provide this standard test size, then provide two scraps, each of which is at least 6” wide on its narrowest axis. If you only have one scrap, the initial hydrostatic head test will be conducted in San Carlos and the virgin sample will then be forwarded to Roger via the BPL Bozeman, MT office. I can’t do an aging cycle and still send an un-aged sample to Roger for archiving with only one sample.

4. I will test any sample of UL shelter material of interest to the BPL forum members. The testing procedure I will use is defined in ISO 811:1981.

5. I will normally provide the test results via both a personal email to you with the results as well as a post to this forum thread with the virgin HH test results within one day of receipt. All virgin samples that are aggregated to begin an aging cycle will be securely packaged and certified mailed to Roger Caffin, via BPL Bozeman, before that batch’s aging cycle begins.

6. After we have samples of everything the forum members want tested or there is a significant lull in submissions, we will begin the aging tests. For aging, one of each sample will be incrementally washed with the other aging samples using the "Regular" wash cycle of a Maytag A512 washer or another washer's equivalent cycle settings. The Load Size is set to "Medium". The water temperature setting will be “cold”. Ambient temperature air of approximately 70F will be used to dry the samples in a dryer for 1 hour between aging cycles.

7. After the completed condition testing, I will forward the aged sample to Roger in Australia, via the BPL office in Bozeman. He will be the eventual repository for every sample submitted to either location and he will be the arbitrator for any anomaly noted by a forum member.

Self-test reports are also strongly solicited. Thanks to Ziff for being the first self-test contributor and Lance for his ingenious DIY design and his large number of tests.

Revision 2: Requested the provider include a URL link to the fabric source in his email to me requesting a Protocol B test in step 2. This eliminates either the contributor or the tester having to cut and paste information. The Web link also provides additional information including the current price and ordering procedures.

Revision 3: Added "The testing procedure I will use is defined in ISO 811:1981." to the end of step 4.

Revision 4: It replaces the second sentence in step 5 which said, "I will then mail your virgin sample to Roger Caffin, via the BPL office in Bozeman, MT, within a few days of my initial virgin sample test." The change was made to reduce the high postal expenses including secure packaging, certification tracking, and post office transit times that would be involved in individually reshipping individual tested virgin samples at the random rate in which they are received.

Supplemental information from Ben Smith
– Sourced directly from Cubic Tech
– Weight is 0.51oz per square yard according to the manufacturer – I have not tested for accuracy

Supplemental information from Richard Nisley
The material arrived in a padded envelope with each sample neatly labeled with a permanent marker. There was only one center fold in the material. There were no indications of extensive crease marks as were present in samples of Cuben not from Ben Smith.

Supplemental information from by Ben Smith
– Sourced from Quest Outfitters
– Weight is 0.69oz per square yard according to Quest – I have not tested for accuracy

Supplemental information from Richard Nisley
The material arrived in a padded envelope with each sample neatly labeled with a permanent marker. There was only one center fold in the material. There were no indications of extensive crease marks as were present in samples not from Ben Smith.

Supplemental information from by Ben Smith: I have also included 3 uncoated nylon samples for HH and air porosity testing. You can make this info public if you wish.
I have found with my own unscientific observations that these 3 similar materials vary widely in these respects and would like to see some numbers to go along with these observations.

Black 20 Denier nylon taffeta – 1 scrap sample
– Sourced from Ti-Goat
– Weight is 1.1oz per square yard according to TG – I have not tested for accuracy

Supplemental information from by Ben Smith: I have also included 3 uncoated nylon samples for HH and air porosity testing. You can make this info public if you wish.
I have found with my own unscientific observations that these 3 similar materials vary widely in these respects and would like to see some numbers to go along with these observations.

Black 20 Denier nylon ripstop – 1 scrap sample
– Sourced from Ti-Goat
– Weight is 1.1oz per square yard according to TG – I have not tested for accuracy

Supplemental information from by Ben Smith: I have also included 3 uncoated nylon samples for HH and air porosity testing. You can make this info public if you wish.
I have found with my own unscientific observations that these 3 similar materials vary widely in these respects and would like to see some numbers to go along with these observations.
Orange 10 Denier nylon ripstop – 1 scrap sample
– Sourced from Thru-Hiker
– Weight is 0.7oz per square yard according to TH – I have not tested for accuracy

Supplemental information from Richard Nisley:
The air porosity of your sample tested 73.2 CFM (Thru-Hiker posted spec on this forum was 2.6 CFM.)

Whoa! So Ben Smith's 0.51oz cuben tested greater than 3500mm HH. That's a huge difference that the typical result around 420mm HH. I wonder if somehow a few pinholes exist in some samples, while others are pinhole free and thus far more waterproof??

As noted above "The material arrived in a padded envelope with each sample neatly labeled with a permanent marker. There was only one center fold in the material. There were no indications of extensive crease marks as were present in samples not from Ben Smith."

Which is also insane because these results are hinting at a major loss of HH when the cuben is not in its virgin state–the mere stuffing of the the .51oz cuben tarp into the stuff sack before its shipped to consumers is enough to create the loss of HH. Or so I believe, since Richard's low HH figures were taken from his newly purchased MLD tarp. After Richard gets enough samples, he's going to weather them manually in his home washing machine and then retest. In which case, we will be able to confirm this hypothesis.

Richard, were there any physical differences between sample 14 & 15? e.g. different color, different name etc. They appear to be described as the same fabric, which means that there are just variations form batch to batch? EDIT sorry, me stupid, now I see that one is regular and the other is ripstop. Sorry!

I just want to throw this out there, it's pretty well known amongst us gear makers that cubic has been having problems keeping up with demand and also had issues producing the 54" cuben due to a problem with some equipment lately.

There may be a very big chance that there are some significant material or manufacturing differences between two batches of the same "code" CTF.

I've definitely noticed differences in spectra density and hand from one batch of "the same" stuff to another.

I'm going to be sending in a sample of CT2K08 I got from Joe in the 51" wide variety when they were having production problems, and some CT3.5K18 I got directly from Cubic shortly there after.

I'm betting there's a good chance that as we see more samples from different "delivery dates", we're going to see some big variations.

Supplemental information from by Greg Mihalik:
detailed description of the material you want tested -CTO.6k.08 Cuben, use for a tent fly
purchase source -gratis, from tent vendor
source description of material -Cubic Tech, special dye-lot run
comment- If this sample needs an identifier, please include HLl as part of it

Supplemental information from Richard Nisley:
The material arrived neatly folded with no pronounced crinkle marks; they were extensive crinkle marks in the first low HH test sample from an earlier thread and minor crinkle marks in the second sample from Kenneth Larson with low HH.

Could you please be soo kind as to remove the the link to the Omni Bivy, that you have include in the information about the 20D taffeta fabric provided by Ben Smith. Titanium Goat does not build anything with the 20D taffeta material that you tested, our Bivy tops are the 20D ripstop Intrepid.

Supplemental information from by Dan Durston: The source was Zpacks.com in the fall of 2010

Supplemental information from Richard Nisley:
The material arrived neatly folded with no crinkle marks; they were extensive crinkle marks in the first low HH test sample from an earlier thread and minor crinkle marks in the second sample from Kenneth Larson with low HH.

Supplemental information from by Dan Durston: The source was Quest Outfitters in the fall of 2010.

Supplemental information from Richard Nisley:
This material does not meet the minimum ISO 811 standards for rain proof. The material arrived with light crinkle marks indicating that it may of have been stuffed at least one time. The appearance is in stark contrast to the recently submitted samples which showed no crinkle marks.

On 4/31/11 after already having sent sample A to Roger, I noticed that sample B had margin section with no reinforcing threads. I decided to test Sample B in three non-overlapping locations away from the area where the reinforcing threads were not present. The results varied significantly depending on the location of the testing head. One test area was 351 mm H2O, one spot showed two spots near 351 mm H2O and never showed a third spot through 3,515 mm H2O, the last spot tested >3,515 mm H20.

Note to Dan Durston: Please make a post to this forum thread with any information you might have relative to the handling history of this sample.